The ministry has issued a notice saying only "applicants placed in the Outstanding and Promising Categories will be selected for participation" in festivals.

The culture ministry said that this is their effort to break the clique dominating the cultural space in the country.

The idea was to create a comprehensive profile of all cultural personalities and rank them according to their "popularity, age and experience", Minister of State for Culture Mahesh Sharma told The Indian Express.

Forty-six of the 185 graded are "outstanding", 112 "promising" and 27 have been put in the "waiting" category and can't represent India.